Resources for Connecting Classrooms
Yesterday, during Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions Rushton and I answered a question about how teachers can find other classroom to connect with for collaborative learning. We came up with three suggestions. Those suggestions are explained below. GridPals Flipgrid’s GridPals is available to any teacher who has a Flipgrid account. Through Gridpals you can […]
How to Password-protect an Edublogs Blog
For more than a decade Edublogs has been my go-to recommendation for anyone looking to build a classroom blog or website outside of the Google environment. One of the reasons for that recommendation is the priority that Edublogs gives to content privacy protection and teacher management of students’ accounts. That’s why I recommended Edublogs earlier […]
How to Make a Backup Copy of Your Blog
Last Friday evening a portion of the blogging community got a bit nervous when Blogger (Google’s blogging platform) started throwing up lots of error messages. In some cases people reported having blog posts completely disappear. Fortunately, everything was corrected fairly quickly, but it was a nervous hour or so for some bloggers. Blogger’s hiccup last […]
Calendars, Schedules, and Favicons – Three Easy Classroom Blog Enhancements
Writing yesterday’s post about blogging permission slips inspired me to look back through my YouTube channel and find some blogging tutorials I’ve made over the years. A few that jumped out as being as relevant today as the day that I made them are this one about embedding calendars, this one about scheduling blog posts, and […]
A Template for Getting Permission for Publishing Student Blogs, Podcasts, and Videos
Even though it’s not as trendy as podcasting or vlogging, blogging is still a great way to have students publish their thoughts and findings. Blogs are also still a good tool for students to use to create portfolios of their work that include writing, videos, and podcasts. Before your students, especially those who are under […]
How Prevent Weird Formatting in Your Blog Post Editor
A couple of weeks ago during Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff someone asked why her blog posts don’t appear correctly when copying from a Word document into the blog post editor. Similarly, formatting gets weird when copying from a Google Document into a blog post editor. The reason for this […]
Join the Student Blogging Challenge in March
Every year Edublogs hosts a couple of student blogging challenges. The next one begins on March 15th. The challenge is open to all K-12 classrooms. Your classroom blog or student blogs don’t have to be hosted on Edublogs in order to participate. The 2020 Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge provides eight weekly blogging suggestions suitable for K-12 students. […]
A Comparison of 6 Blogging Services for Teachers and Students – Updated
About five years ago I assembled a series charts that compared the features of ed tech tools that served similar purposes. Some of the charts I made were about video tools, animation tools, timeline tools, digital portfolios, and blogs. To start 2020 I’m revisiting those charts and updating them to better reflect the current features […]
Need Some Classroom Blog Ideas? Try These Edublogs Resources
For years Edublogs has hosted a list of active classroom blogs. The purpose of the list to offer a place for teachers to find examples of classroom blogs and potentially find blogging buddies for their students. Anyone who has an active classroom blog can add their blog to the list regardless of whether or not […]
How to Embed Google Docs Into Your Blog Posts
One of the things that makes Google Documents popular is that you can easily publish your documents for anyone to read online even if they don’t have Google accounts of their own. How to Embed a Google Doc Into Your Blog You can do this by choosing the “publish to the web” option found in […]
5 Ways to Enhance Your Classroom Blog
A classroom blog can be used for so many purposes that it is still one of the things that I think every class should have. A blog can be used for communicating important information to parents and students, it can be used by students as a journal to reflect on lessons, it can be used […]
How to Customize Your Edublogs Favicon
A couple of weeks ago I published a video about how to customize the favicon on Blogger blogs. Since then I’ve answered a few emails from readers who wanted to know if the same is possible in Edublogs. Yes, it is possible to customize the favicon icon for Edublogs blogs. The process of doing this […]
How to Embed Wakelet Collections Into Google Sites and Edublogs
In my previous post I provided an overview of the basics of using Wakelet to create collections of your bookmarks, notes, pictures, videos, and documents. Once you’ve made a few Wakelet collections you may want to share them with your students. There are a few ways that you can do that. You can share Wakelet […]
How to Add a Calendar to an Edublogs Page or Post
Having a calendar page on your classroom blog is a good way to help keep your students and their parents informed about upcoming events and due dates. Google Calendar is the tool that I prefer for making public event calendars because whenever I update the calendar it is automatically updated wherever it is displayed including […]
Edublogs Explains How to Handle Student Blogs at the End of the Year
The end of the school year will be here before too long. For many of you it’s only about six weeks away. If you and your students have been blogging along this year, you might be wondering what you should do with those blogs when the year ends. Do you leave them floundering in the […]
How to Create Featured Blog Posts
A couple of weeks ago, in anticipation of the Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge, I updated my chart of recommended classroom blogging tools. If you’re participating in the blogging challenge, you might find yourself wanting to feature a post at the top of the blog. This could be a post that contains important information about the […]
A Comparison of Blogging Services for Teachers and Students
The Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge kicks-off two weeks from now. You don’t need to be an Edublogs user in order for your students to participate in the challenge. If you’re new to blogging or new to having students blog, Edublogs is a solid choice for a blogging platform. Edublogs isn’t the only option for student […]
The Next Student Blogging Challenge Starts Soon
Blogging can be a great way to get students interested in writing and publishing their work for an audience. The challenges of classroom blogging have always been coming up with things for kids to write about and building an audience for your students’ work. The Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge addresses both of those challenges. The […]
Need Blog Post Ideas? Edublogs Has You Covered
For many people the biggest challenge in maintaining a blog has nothing to do with the technical aspects. It’s coming up with ideas for blog posts that often proves to be the biggest challenge to keeping a blog going. This is true whether you’re running a blog for a classroom, as a hobby, or for […]
Two Good Places to Find Classrooms to Connect With
Last week I ran a guest post written by Sarah Fromhold containing great tips for hosting Mystery Skype or Mystery Hangout activities. Since then I’ve fielded a few emails from readers who were looking for other ways that they can connect their classrooms with other classrooms. There are two things that I’ve recommended to those folks. […]
Three Digital Portfolio Styles – And Tools for Making Them
This post originally appeared in my Practical Ed Tech Newsletter and on my Practical Ed Tech website. This week I am working with a group of teachers who want to have their middle school students create digital portfolios that they will maintain throughout the school year. The first part of our work will be to […]
The Student Blogging Challenge – An Audience for Your Students’ Blogs
Edublogs provides an excellent service for creating classroom blogs and student blogs. But offering a solid blogging platform isn’t the only way that Edublogs supports teachers. Throughout the year Edublogs publishes helpful tips for creating and maintaining blogs with students. You’ll find those tips on The Edublogger. And twice each year Edublogs hosts a student […]
How to Embed PowerPoint Presentations Into Your Blog or Google Site
Last week I published a post about including slideshows in your blog or website. More than a few of you wrote to me with questions about the directions for embedding PowerPoint into your Edublogs blogs and one of you emailed me asking for help with Google Sites. To answer those questions I recorded the following […]
Three Ways to Keep Track of Students’ Blog Entries
One of the questions that I often field during my workshop on blogging is, “how do you keep track of what students are writing?” The answer to that depends on a few things including how frequently your students are publishing and the platform through which your students are blogging. Option 1: If you are using […]
How to Export, Save, and Re-purpose Your Edublogs Posts
As the end of the school year approaches you might find yourself wondering what to do with all of the blogs posts your students wrote during the year. If you used Edublogs for your classroom blog, there is an easy way to export and save a copy of all of those posts. Follow these steps […]
Today’s Blogging Q&A Recording
This afternoon I hosted a live Q&A session about blogging. I used YouTube’s relatively new desktop livestreaming tool for the broadcast. If you missed the broadcast, you can watch the recording as embedded below. A list of the questions that I answered is included below the video in this post. How do I get started? […]
Edublogs Publishes an Extensive Guide to Classroom Podcasting
Podcasting has had a resurgence over the last couple of years. Part of that resurgence is due to the increase in easy-to-use tools for creating podcasts as well as an increase in platforms through which you can listen to podcasts. Anchor.fm is one of those easy-to-use podcast creation tools. I featured it in a video […]
Edublogs Publishes a Guide to Mobile Blogging
Edublogs, one of the two services that I recommend for classroom blogging, has published a free guide to blogging on mobile phones. Edublogs recently deprecated their free mobile apps and now recommends three other ways to post to your Edublogs blog from your phone. The three methods that Edublogs now recommends for blogging on your […]
The Services I Recommend for Classroom Blogging Today
I started blogging with students twelve years ago. I started this blog eleven years ago. Over that time I’ve seen a lot of new blogging services pop-up and disappear a few years later. But there are two services that have stood the test of time that I recommend today whenever someone asks me which service […]
How to Include Podcast Episodes In Your Blog Posts
The folks at Edublogs were kind enough to share my list of ten classroom podcast ideas with participants in their Better Blogging With Students course as well as with all of their Twitter followers. This morning I asked the Edublogs folks if they were allowing the embedding of Anchor episodes into blog posts (Edublogs hasn’t […]
How to Schedule Blog Posts
Posting on a consistent schedule is one of the keys to maintaining interest in any blog. One of the best ways to maintain a consistent schedule is to use the scheduling tools that are built into most blogging services. By using the scheduling tools you can write a bunch of posts at once and have […]
Wikispaces is Closing – Here Are Some Alternatives
Last week the team at Wikispaces announced that the service will be shutting down later this year. Part of that announcement included a link to directions for downloading your content from the service. Of course, if you want to build a new wiki moving forward, you’ll need to explore other options. Google Sites is the […]
Comparison and Explanation of Classroom Blog Services
On Friday I shared ideas for managing academic blogs. If you haven’t started a blog yet, choosing the right blogging platform can help you manage your classroom blog in the long run. Before we answer the question of which blog platform to use we need to understand some terminology commonly used when talking about blogs. Understanding […]
Three Classic Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2018
Over the last decade I’ve reviewed thousands of free educational technology tools. Some have been a hit, some haven’t, and some have stood the test of time to become “classics” in the world of educational technology. Here are three classics with which every educational technology specialist should be familiar. Scratch Scratch is a is a free […]
Thinking of Starting a Blog in 2018? – Here Are My Recommendations
Are you thinking about starting a blog in 2018? If you are, here are my recommendations based on more than a decade of daily blogging. Classroom Blogging If you want to start a blog to use with your students my first recommendation is to try Edublogs. It runs on the powerful WordPress platform but doesn’t […]
A WordPress Plugin for Finding Public Domain Pictures
Pixabay is regularly featured as an alternative to Google Image search. Pixabay hosts thousands of high-resolution and high-quality images that are in the public domain. Today, through Product Hunt, I learned that Pixabay offers a WordPress plug-in. With the Pixabay WordPress plug-in installed on your blog, you can search for public domain images in the […]
Blogging with Students
Blogging is a great way to provide all students with the opportunity to have their voices heard. Blogging is also a convenient way to connect your students with students from around the world. Seven Blogging Platforms for Teachers Compared and Ranked Provides a snapshot of different popular blogging platforms so you can compare them quickly […]
Built to Last – Blogging With Edublogs and Blogger
This November will mark the tenth anniversary of Free Technology for Teachers. Over those ten years I have reviewed thousands of free resources for teachers and students. Some of those free resources have come and gone in a blaze of glory (remember when Second Life and Nings were the cat’s meow?) while others have stood […]
Blogs in the Age of Google Classroom
This week at ISTE 17 there will plenty of buzz about Google products and products that integrate with Google Classroom. Google, and some Google devotees, will have you believe that Google Classroom is the solution to almost every workflow and communication problem you have. Google Classroom does provide some good solutions to workflow and communication […]
Edublogs Publishes a Report on the State of Educational Blogging
Edublogs, a popular student blogging service, recently published the findings of their annual survey to gather feedback from teachers, students, and school administrators about their use of educational blogs. This year 688 people completed the survey, down from 777 last year, but up from the 587 two years ago. Sue Waters wrote a detailed report […]
7 Blogging Tools for Teachers Compared and Ranked – Updated for 2017
One of last year’s most popular posts featured my chart comparing seven popular blogging tools for teachers and students. Given the recent update to Edublogs I thought it was time to update my chart and rankings of blogging tools for teachers and students. You can view the chart here as a Google Doc or as […]
Edublogs Now Offers Pro Features for Free!
Edublogs is a blogging service designed for classrooms. For the last four or five years many of the services that they offered were only available to people who subscribed to the “Pro” version of Edublogs at a cost of $39.95/year. Most of those “Pro” features will be available for free beginning today. The Edublogs Pro […]
Blogging Platforms for Teachers Compared and Ranked – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. By the way, if you want to learn more about using blogs in school, join Blogs & Social […]
How to Password Protect Blog Posts
On Monday night I received an email from a reader who was looking for a way to have his students blog and share pictures without making the posts completely public. There are two ways that I suggest doing this. In Blogger you can restrict access to a blog by selecting the private option and specifying […]
How to Save Space and Time When Using Images in Your Blog
Whenever I publish a new blog post, I include an image in the post. Including an image helps draw readers in and it helps grab attention when it is shared on places like Pinterest and Facebook. Folks who blog frequently may find it tiresome to look for new images all the time. Likewise, in a […]